Office Cafe

Office Cafe Server Move

Sometimes I insist on doing things the hard way. I needed to reinstall my server’s operating system. That is, I needed to update the FreeBSD installation on one particular machine. Just to make things interesting, I also updated to the latest version of WordPress at the same time. So to accomplish the reinstallation, I first moved my entire WordPress blog to another physical server. We’ll see, but I may never move it back! For now, everything is back to normal. Now that everything is working, I will go back to the original server and rebuild the entire server. Why do I need to do everything over again? Since the time I built that server, I have standardized my installations and that machine was no longer conforming to the new standard.

Yes, I am hosting my own web server (servers actually). I am doing this mainly for the instructional value. (It also keeps my brain thinking along some very technical lines. I suppose I could just settle for Sudoku, but there is something very therapeutic about hosting your own web server)!

And to make sure that the job would be complicated, I configured FreeBSD and Apache to serve up Name-Based as well as IP-Based Virtual Hosts simultaneously. What that means is that this server is hosting multiple domains on at least two distinct IP addresses from the same physical machine. Crazy? For sure! Why do it? Let’s just say that there is a lot of educational value in digging into the details.

Bryan J. Hong’s book, Building A Server With FreeBSD 7, sure came in handy. Although he doesn’t cover the Virtual Hosts in any detail, lots of information about the topic is available at the Apache web site.

There are a lot of moving parts to servers. The details are pretty intense. Fortunately, Hong keeps things pretty simple and nearly complete. Check it out.

Anyway, moving the installation from one server to another server was not simple, but neither was it impossible. The fact that you can even see these words is proof enough for me that I got a few things right along the way. It was also fun to make it all happen.

I suggest trying this yourself, just for the fun of it (and if you are into technical things like Unix, virtual servers, intrusion detection, honeypots, bringing new life to old hardware, etc.)!